Abendemfindung

Today's musical feature is the subject of today's blog entry. Mozart's most haunting and in my opinion, most beautiful of all his Lieder, is his Abendempfindung, (Evening thoughts), K. 523. It was composed in the summer of 1787, during a time in Mozart's life when he sensed that things were beginning to unravel. With his English friends, including Nancy Storace, leaving earlier in the year, the loss of his father, and his popularity in Vienna waning, he felt, perhaps, an impending doom. It would only be three-and-a-half years later that Mozart would succumb to his final illness on December 5, 1791, at the age of thirty-five.

This particular Lied is especially close to my heart, as it is the piece that I sang in the film Mozartballs, and is featured in the DVD release this summer. Click here for German text along with the English translation.